From the Doctrine of Christ to Person of Christ

Abstract Interpretation of the Transfiguration of Christ has already a long tradition by the time of Maximos, heir to this tradition, conscious of Origen’s own interpretation. Maximos discusses the Transfiguration several times in his works, but in his extended interpretation in Ambiguum 10 he takes interpretation of the episode on to another level. The appearance of the transfigured Christ is interpreted by way of an original take on Dionysios’ distinction between apophatic and kataphatic theology: the manifestation of Christ through his clothing signifies his kataphatic revelation through creation and the Scriptures, the dazzling face of Christ an apophatic manifestation of the person (prosopon, the same word as ‘face’) of Christ. The true revelation of Christ occurs in a face-to-face encounter with Christ in which the Word becomes a ‘type and symbol of himself’. The doctrine of Christ passes over to contemplation of the image, or icon, of Christ.